Huy Vu
09-15-2006, 05:13 PM
Lately I've seen a lot of people posting and asking questions about how to retain the color of one object (or person) in the scene and make everything else black and white (or similar variations) so I thought I would just post a tutorial here. I usually do this in After Effect but if someone else knows how to do this on another program then please feel free to add to this.
It's actually a very simple effect to do, but it can get tedious depending on your shots. So here goes:
1. Put two layers of the same scene in the timeline, one on top of the other. We'll call this the Background (the bottom layer) and the Subject (top layer).
2. Desaturate and make the Background layer black and white.
3. Select the Subject layer, then use the Pen tool to draw a mask around whatever you want to keep in color. For this example I'm assuming that it's a person (we'll call him Bob). Make sure that the mask matches the outline of the person as closely as you can. Also make sure that the mask is in Add mode. In this mode, the mask will retains everything that's inside the mask but get rid of everything else. Since you already have the B&W Background layer right underneath it, that background will show up and voila!
4. Well, what if Bob decides to move to the right? Now part of him is B&W and the rest are in color (which is actually kinda cool but not what we're looking for). So now you'll have to keyframe the mask so that it matches up with him as he moves. Select the Subject layer and open up its mask's Transform property. Click on the stopwatch to set keyframes. Go forward a few seconds in the time line and drags the vertexes of the mask so that it conforms to Bob's profile. Go forward a few seconds more and fix the mask. Now the mask will move with Bob as he moves and his body remains in color!
In the mask properties menu, you can also feather the mask a few pixels. This blurs the edge of the mask so that you don't have a sharp separation between the B&W area and the area that's in color. Don't overdo it!
It's probably not a good idea to do this effect for an action scene unless you have hours and hours to spare on keyframing. Keep the blocking simple. The less your subject moves, the less work it is.
That's it! Hopefully everyone else will continue to add and refine this tutorial.
It's actually a very simple effect to do, but it can get tedious depending on your shots. So here goes:
1. Put two layers of the same scene in the timeline, one on top of the other. We'll call this the Background (the bottom layer) and the Subject (top layer).
2. Desaturate and make the Background layer black and white.
3. Select the Subject layer, then use the Pen tool to draw a mask around whatever you want to keep in color. For this example I'm assuming that it's a person (we'll call him Bob). Make sure that the mask matches the outline of the person as closely as you can. Also make sure that the mask is in Add mode. In this mode, the mask will retains everything that's inside the mask but get rid of everything else. Since you already have the B&W Background layer right underneath it, that background will show up and voila!
4. Well, what if Bob decides to move to the right? Now part of him is B&W and the rest are in color (which is actually kinda cool but not what we're looking for). So now you'll have to keyframe the mask so that it matches up with him as he moves. Select the Subject layer and open up its mask's Transform property. Click on the stopwatch to set keyframes. Go forward a few seconds in the time line and drags the vertexes of the mask so that it conforms to Bob's profile. Go forward a few seconds more and fix the mask. Now the mask will move with Bob as he moves and his body remains in color!
In the mask properties menu, you can also feather the mask a few pixels. This blurs the edge of the mask so that you don't have a sharp separation between the B&W area and the area that's in color. Don't overdo it!
It's probably not a good idea to do this effect for an action scene unless you have hours and hours to spare on keyframing. Keep the blocking simple. The less your subject moves, the less work it is.
That's it! Hopefully everyone else will continue to add and refine this tutorial.